Do you remember the Hololens – that futuristic-looking AR project that Microsoft was hyping up a few years back? It got a lot of press for a while, but eventually seemed to have gone the way of other ambitious, hyped-up ideas (like Project Milo), and just faded away without a trace.
Apparently, despite falling off the radar of the general public, the headset is still being worked on and is gaining some new talent.
Bill Stillwell, formerly the Director of Product Planning for Xbox and Project xCloud, announced this weekend that he’ll be leaving the Xbox team to work on the HoloLens. Apparently he officially joins the team on Monday but had some involvement with the project before then.
The so-called “mixed-reality experience” made waves among the games press between 2015 and 2017, when it seemed focused on being an innovative new way to create gaming experiences that combine the real with the virtual. Demonstrations of AR versions of Conker, Minecraft, and Super Mario Bros. had people wondering just what kind of future the device would bring.
Then, without much ceremony, everyone just stopped talking about it – at least when it came to games. A Hololens 2 was produced, but its focus stopped being on the fun, consumer side of technology, and started looking at its potential uses in the workplace. It began billing itself as “the future of work,” as a way for industries to make the most of modern technology and improve their workers’ abilities.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that this is the direction Microsoft chose to take the product. The dev kit for the original HoloLens cost $3,000, and the HoloLens 2 is being listed as a $3,500 piece of technology, with a $125-per-month “remote assist” service also being offered. That’s not the kind of money that most gamers are willing to spend.
With an Xbox alum like Stillwell joining the HoloLens team, there’s a chance that they’ll revisit the HoloLens’ use as a gaming device. Many people believe AR is truly the future of gaming, we’re just waiting on someone to bring the tech to market in a big way.
NEXT: Paper Beast Review: A Hallucinatory Trip Mixed With Arts & Crafts
